Integrated circuit devices such as processors, input/output controller hub (ICH), and so forth, are typically manufactured in the form of dice or “chips.” During the manufacture or post manufacture of such devices, various testing operations may be performed on such devices.
For example, a burn-in operation may be performed to stress a device under test (DUT) in order to determine whether the DUT will fail under certain relatively extreme conditions such as at elevated temperatures and voltages. In some instances, such an operation may be performed by placing the DUT onto a burn-in board and coupling the DUT to drivers such that the DUT is run at relatively high voltage and temperature. In such operations, the temperature of the DUT can be elevated by toggling greater than 80% of the nodes of the DUT. Note that throughout the following description the terms “burn-in operation” and “high volume manufacturing (HVM) operation” will be used interchangeably and are, therefore, synonymous.
In contrast to a burn-in or HVM operation, a debug or debugging operation is performed in order to determine why an integrated circuit device is not behaving as designed or in accordance with simulation results. That is, any mismatch between silicon (i.e., circuit device embodied in a chip) and simulation may be best understood through the debugging process. A debugging operation is typically performed by providing predetermined signal patterns to various parts of the integrated circuit device and monitoring the internal signals of the device during the debugging operation.
In a conventional debugging operation, the DUT is placed onto an automated tester equipment (ATE) that probes the internal signals generated by the DUT during the debugging operation. However, before placing the DUT onto the ATE, engineering changes to the actual physical form of the DUT must first be performed. The engineering changes are typically accomplished by forming probe pads on the metal lines of the DUT. Once the engineering changes have been made, the DUT can be placed into the ATE. After placing the DUT on the ATE, probes that are coupled to an oscilloscope are coupled to the probe pads. Internal signals that are generated during the debugging operations may then be sampled through the probe pads. Unfortunately, performing conventional debugging operations tends to be expensive and can take up to weeks or even months to complete, depending on the complexity of the issue.